


Sometimes When It Snows

by flippyspoon



Series: Sometimes When it Snows [1]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Friendship, Friendship/Love, M/M, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 20:04:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/pseuds/flippyspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas and Jimmy talk about the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes When It Snows

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Иногда, когда идёт снег](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1425700) by [WerantoAvalon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WerantoAvalon/pseuds/WerantoAvalon)



Matthew Crawley had been dead for just two days. The servants talked of baby George but there was sorrow even in that conversation, which kept turning back to Mr. Crawley anyhow. Jimmy sat at the piano alone in the afternoon, waiting to be called up. He wanted to play, but all the tunes he liked seemed wrong. He was rifling through sheet music when he heard footsteps behind him and saw Mr. Barrow slowly shuffle in. Thomas was still banged up and bloodied. He wore shirtsleeves and braces. Jimmy thought he looked different dressed so simply, though his hair was slicked back in it’s usual coiffure. He sat gingerly at the table, grimacing, and nodded a hello to Jimmy.

Jimmy said, “Should you be down here?”

“Bit lonesome upstairs,” Thomas said. “Nothin’ to do. Thought I ought to stretch my legs.”

“Well, it’s depressing down here. Everyone’s on about Mr. Crawley.” He sighed and turned fully around on the bench to face Thomas. “Sorry. You probably knew him much better. I shouldn’t…”

Thomas lit a cigarette. “I didn’t know him well. But he was an alright sort. One of the better ones.”

“I’d like to play, but most of what’s here is too cheerful.”

“What’ve you got?” Thomas said, and started to rise.

Jimmy waved a hand at him. “No, I’ll come to you.” He sat down across from Thomas and set the pile of sheet music on the table.

“We had tea together once in the trenches,” Thomas said. He looked troubled as he paged through a music book. “Mr. Crawley and I.”

“Tea,” Jimmy repeated, mildly amused.

“All the comforts of home,” Thomas said.

“Not from what I recall.” Jimmy eyed Thomas’s glove. Anna had once told him it was a war injury, but he had never heard the story. “You got that in the war, didn’t you?”

Thomas exhaled smoke and wiggled the fingers of his wounded hand, the sheet music suddenly forgotten. “Yes. That’s my blighty alright.”

Jimmy said, “Can I see it?” It was only morbid curiosity. In his experience, soldiers liked to show off their scars. If Jimmy had earned any, he would have.

“It’s not very pretty,” Thomas said. His tone wasn’t self-conscious, but Jimmy thought his beaten face gave him an air of tragedy and he felt bad.

Jimmy snorted in disbelief. “I was in the war too, ya know. Saw aught uglier than an old scar, I think.”

Thomas rose an eyebrow, wary. But he stuck his cigarette in his mouth and pulled off his glove. The scar was a little lump and a thick line on the back of his hand. Thomas turned his hand the other way. His palm wore an angry jagged circle where a bullet had gone straight through. Jimmy whistled, impressed.

But he said, “I’ve seen worse.”

Thomas looked taken aback. “You never have.”

“Maybe not on a hand,” he admitted. He picked up Thomas’s glove, as if it were a part of the scar he was also licensed to inspect. It smelled of careworn leather and cigarettes. “Can I ask… Was it on purpose?” Thomas’s face fell and Jimmy back-pedalled. “Only I heard about men doin’ that. It were always the hand or the foot. I couldn’t say a thing about it. I wasn’t much in the thick. When I was, I stayed behind everyone else. Easy to do at my height.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “It was on purpose.”

Jimmy nodded and casually slipped the glove onto his right hand. The fit was tight; his hand was thicker than Thomas’s, but his fingers were shorter. He flexed and the glove pulled at his skin. “If it were bad enough to make you do that, it must’ve been bad.”

“It was.”

Jimmy pressed his thumb into the palm of the glove, trying to soften it. “Does it hurt ever?”

“Sometimes when it snows,” Thomas inhaled and held the smoke as he thought, and flexed his own wounded hand. “I don’t think the bones are quite right.” He blew the smoke out.

Jimmy didn’t like to think of the war. But then, no one did. His thoughts touched an inkling of what Thomas must’ve seen to have got his hand shot through and he shuddered. He frowned at the glove and traced his fingers over the back where Thomas’s knuckles had wrinkled the leather. Thomas smoked but didn’t speak. Jimmy held his gaze a moment, absentmindedly still running his fingers over the glove.

“Mr. Barrow, nice to see up and about.” Anna’s voice rang from the doorway.

Jimmy nearly jumped out of his seat and, glancing down at the glove, he blushed. He had only meant to wear it as a lark, like trying on a friend’s hat. But now it seemed like something embarrassing; a gesture far too intimate. He took off the glove, hoping Anna hadn’t noticed and gave it back to Thomas.

She sat down with a cup of tea and smiled. “What’re you two about?”

Jimmy looked down at his pile of music and said, “I were just lookin’ for the right song.”


End file.
